I'm trying to fade the background-color of a span tag using JQuery to emphasize when a change has occured. I was thinking the code would be someting like the following inside the click handler, but I can't seem to get it working. Can you show me where I went wrong?
Thanks Russ.

$("span").fadeOut("slow").css("background-color").val("FFFF99");

That's better, but now it fades both the background-color of the span tag and the text value of the span tag too. I'm trying to just fade the background-color and leave the text visible. Can that be done?

If you already have jQuery UI, you're ready to animate color. Note: The jQuery UI project extends the .animate() method by allowing some non-numeric styles such as colors to be animated. The project also includes mechanisms for specifying animations through CSS classes rather than individual attributes.api.jquery.com/animate
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styfleFeb 6 '13 at 23:37

the above code will fadeout to 50% the entire span tag, then changes background and fadeIn. it isn't what you were looking for, but creates a decet animation without depending from other jquery plugins ;)

As for the guy asking about making a background transparent on roll-over to reveal an image would it not be simpler to build it like a normal jQuery image roll-over like the ones people use to switch nav images?